More than 15 people were killed and at least 20 civilians injured in Yemen on Monday when warplanes bombed a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders, reported The New York Times.
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“MSF wishes to clarify that all parties to the conflict, including in Kabul and Washington, were clearly informed of the precise location (GPS Coordinates) of the MSF facilities in Kunduz, including the hospital”, MSF stated.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels condemned the Saudi-led military coalition, saying the strike was one of many attacks on civilians carried out by Saudi “aggressors”.
Five patients remain hospitalised and the hospital has been partially destroyed.
Mr McPhun said the Saudi-led coalition would have been aware “without doubt” of what the MSF facility was.
“Strikes on humanitarian facilities including hospitals are particularly concerning”, she said. “Deliberately targeting medical facilities is a serious violation of global humanitarian law which would amount to a war crime”.
Nine people were killed in the explosion – the fourth attack on an MSF facility in less than a year – including one MSF staff member, while two more patients died while being transferred to another clinic, MSF said. “All such attacks should be investigated through prompt, effective, independent and impartial mechanisms”.
The United Nations has recorded well over 3,200 civilian deaths in the conflict, 60 percent of which it has attributed to the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes.
The strikes come less than 48 hours after MSF accused the coalition of killing 10 children in airstrikes on a school in Saada, another rebel-held province in Yemen’s north.
Air strikes were identified as responsible for 60 percent of the 785 children killed and 1,168 wounded in Yemen a year ago.
MSF is active in 11 hospitals and health centres, and providing support to another 18 hospitals or health centres in eight governorates: Aden, Al-Dhale’, Taiz, Saada, Amran, Hajjah, Ibb and Sana’a governorates. It is the only remaining operational facility in the district, covering a population of almost 20,000 people.
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Yemen has witnessed a conflict since 2014 between the government and Iranian-backed Houthi militants who abolished parliament early and forced the internationally recognised president out of the country. Throughout the war the Saudis have been criticized for the huge civilian toll of their airstrikes, but the number of incidents seems to be growing dramatically in recent weeks.
